NanoStat: An open source, fully wireless potentiostat

We present an open source, fully wireless potentiostat (the NanoStat) for applications in electrochemistry, sensing, biomedical diagnostics, and nanotechnology, based on only 2 integrated circuit chips: A digital microcontroller with integrated on board WiFi and file/web server hardware/software, and an analog front end. This versatile platform is fully capable of all modern electrochemisty assays, including cyclic voltammetry, square wave voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and normal pulse voltammetry. The user interface is a web browser connected over http. All the code (firmware, HTML5, JavaScript) is hosted by the NanoStat itself without the need for any additional software. The total size is 4 x 40 x 20 mm and battery operation for 6 h is demonstrated, possible to extend to weeks or months in sleep mode. We anticipate that the applications of this could be very broad, from biomedical sensing in the clinic, to remote monitoring of unattended motes, to even possibly sensing aerial pathogens such as COVID in large public spaces without the need for anything other than a web browser for remote monitoring from anywhere in the world. Finally, we propose to use this software suite as a basis (kernel) of a fully open source, general purpose, web based electrochemistry software suite, abstracted from the hardware, which we call OpenEChem.

Automated summary

This article introduces an open source, fully wireless potentiostat called NanoStat, which is applicable to various fields such as electrochemistry, sensing, biomedical diagnostics, and nanotechnology. It is a versatile platform capable of conducting modern electrochemistry assays with a user interface connected through a web browser. The entire code is hosted by NanoStat itself. The potential applications of this technology range from biomedical sensing in clinics to remote monitoring in public spaces.